thou shalt find all my place forlorn
by prouvaires
Summary: -surely she deserves a happy ending just as much as he does?- DracoGabrielle. For tat1312.


thou shalt find all my place forlorn_  
Just you and the missus and rose-scented kisses. My, what a feeling._  
(~Le Revenant, Charles Baudelaire [English Translation] & Welcome To Mystery, Plain White T's.)

**A/N: **For tat1312, who requested a DracoGabrielle fic. Hope I didn't disappoint. I wasn't really sure how to characterise them at first, because I almost never write Draco and have never written Gabrielle … so I went with a Draco like from still we are navigating by the stars and Gabrielle like I always imagined her.

Enjoy!

---

He gets a single impression of frantic blue eyes peeking desperately over a huge pile of papers before she crashes into him and her paperwork bursts up in a wild flurry around them both. He staggers and just manages to grab her before she falls over too.

"_Mon Dieu, _monsieur, I must apologise!" she declares in mortified voice, her hand pressing over her heart. "I did not see you!"

He brushes his jacket off and gives her a guarded smile. "That's quite alright. You look like you have a lot on your mind."

She nods furiously as she kneels to gather up her scattered sheets. He chases one that is making a desperate bid for freedom down the corridor, and then returns to help her pile them all back up. She gives him an odd look as she notices him stacking papers quite contentedly alongside her.

"What's the matter?" he asks as he passes her a sheet with a heading about werewolves or something.

"Oh, nothing …" she replies, trailing off uncertainly and brushing some of her blonde hair out of her face as she darts a glance at him. "It's just … you are Draco Malfoy?"

He agrees that this is the case and deftly snags a piece of paper lifted up by a sudden breeze.

"Then why do you help me? You are supposed to be rude and arrogant."

He laughs aloud at this and holds out a hand to help her to her feet, the sheets all returned to their original piles.

"That's the trouble with old reputations – they come back to haunt you," he tells her, and she gives him a shy smile as she attempts to heft all the papers back into her arms. With a sigh, he neatly separates the pile and takes half for himself.

"Are you su- " she begins, but he cuts her off.

"So where are we going with these?"

"To the Auror department," she informs him, and leads him off down the corridor. She seems to glide rather than walk, and Draco admires her long sheet of fair hair for a brief second before increasing the speed of his walking and moving to stride alongside her.

"So, what's your name?" he asks her. She blushes and drops her face a little, her hair falling down like curtains on each side so he can't see her expression. "Come on," he teases, giving her a little nudge with his elbow. "You know my name, it's only fair."

"Gabrielle, monsieur," she says eventually, peeping up at him through her hair.

"Just, Draco," he tells her. "Forget the 'monsieur' thing. No-one else awards me that much respect."

"Yes, because of the war," she says softly, and he doesn't understand the purpose of the little sigh she gives at that. She glances up at him again to find his questioning gaze fixed on her face, and sighs again.

"The war was sad and so many people died," she says quietly, "but it seems everyone else has got a happy ending out of it. My sister has married a Weasley and she has her little daughter now. Victoire is very beautiful … but now she is here my sister does not have any time for me. It is very lonely."

Draco, with a raised eyebrow (because that news doesn't surprise him at all), follows her around another corner.

"I have heard even you had a happy ending," she continues, shifting her papers in her arms. "And that, I think, made me unhappiest."

He stares at her in surprise. "I thought you didn't – " he begins, but she cuts him off with a mortified gasp.

"_Mon dieu, _mons- Draco! I did not mean that you do not deserve your happy ending!" her eyes are wide with worry that she has hurt his feelings. "I only meant to say that it made me alarmed that there is something wrong inside me, if I do not have my happy ending and the most notorious Slytherin boy does."

He smiles at her gently to show no hard feelings, and she seems to give way a little with relief.

"I do not mean to say that you are horrible," she says firmly, tossing her head in an attempt to get some stray hair out of her eyes. He shifts his papers into one arm and deftly moves it for her. Her lips part slightly as his fingertips brush across her cheek, and he quickly removes his hand as an electric spark seems to jump where their skin has come into contact.

She gasps and her gaze locks firmly with his. Something inside his chest starts thumping away at his ribcage, but then _damnitall _he becomes very aware of the wedding ring on his finger and he breaks their connection instantly.

"So why am I not horrible?" he asks, his voice slightly rough and still unsteady. She takes a shaky breath and blinks a couple of times.

"Because you have repented," she says. "You have said you are sorry and you have meant it. So many have not. You have been bullied and rejected because of what you did and it has not made you bitter. I think I would not have the strength to not grow angry with everything."

He tilts his head to the side as they continue their measured walking.

"I do get angry, you know," he admits after several seconds of silence. "I get so angry I just want to kill everyone. But I won't. Maybe I'm weak or something."

She whirls round instantly to block him, her hair crackling with anger.

"You are not _weak_," she insists, her eyes flashing with fury. "Killing people is being _weak_. You are strong."

"Stop it, really," he teases, encouraging her to start walking again. "You're making me blush."

She laughs and looks about to add something when they round a final corner and find Harry leaning against a wall, wand in hand, tapping his foot with impatience.

"Oh, Gabrielle, there you – _Malfoy_?!"

"Nice to see you too, Potter," he replies with a drawl, offloading his stack of papers into Harry's arms while the other wizard is distracted. "Heard you just had a kid. I've been praying for it every night that it doesn't inherit your genes."

Harry glares at him, and is about to retort when Gabrielle suddenly becomes very business-like and brushes past him into the office.

"Monsieur Potter, I have the reports on the new ministry legislation on werewolves. I also have the records of the attacks in south London and the treaty with the vampires in Nova Scotia."

"Still sticking your nose into other people's business, eh, Potter?" Draco asks arrogantly, pushing past Harry to follow Gabrielle. The other man follows with a furious scowl, placing the papers Draco had forced on him down on the desk. Gabrielle is sitting behind it, scribbling something furiously on a piece of parchment.

"The Americans asked for our help," Harry replies stiffly, and Draco, with great amusement, notes the effort Potter is making not to lose his temper. "We were glad to oblige."

"I bet you were," Draco replies in a low voice, his gaze running indolently over the full bookcases in the room.

"Miss Delacour, please show Mr Malfoy out."

Draco grins as Gabrielle rises from behind the desk and brushes her white shirt off before moving to stand beside him.

"By the way, Malfoy," Harry adds in a voice suddenly infused with spite, "tell your wife that she needs to be more careful where she meets her lovers. I saw her with Zambini not two nights ago right out in public."

Draco, horror and self-loathing flooding through him along with a burst of hatred, somehow keeps control of himself by latching his gaze onto Gabrielle's as her hands fly to her mouth in shock. She lowers her head and moves past Harry, pausing in front of Draco.

"Please, Monsieur Malfoy, this way."

He follows her without a word, his hands shaking with rage, and is utterly silent as he battles to keep himself from cursing Potter into oblivion. The minute they are out of sight of the auror's office, Gabrielle shyly reaches out and slips her hand into Draco's. He is roused from his abject thoughts by the feel of her warm palm against his. His fingers close around hers quite of their own accord.

"I'm so sorry," she says softly, squeezing his hand gently. "I didn't know."

"I expect everyone else did," he replies in a cracked voice, trying desperately to keep control of his fluctuating emotions. "I bet she's been playing me absolutely for a fool."

Gabrielle abandons all pretence of professional distance and worms her way into his arms, hugging him tightly around the neck and pressing her face into the juncture between his neck and his shoulder.

"You are not a fool," she informs him angrily as his arms hesitantly wrap around her back and he hides his grief-stricken expression in her long hair. "You have been nothing but courteous to me. Your wife has taken advantage of you because you do not seem angry at anything."

They stand like that for several moments, touching along every inch of their bodies, and Draco is considering exactly how difficult it will be to let her go when she finally draws back, when suddenly they hear footsteps marching down the hallway near them.

"Come with me," she says, wrenching herself from his embrace and capturing his hand within hers again. She starts running, pulling him along behind her, and he follows her blindly as he desperately tries to prevent the tears rising.

They arrive in the main foyer and she doesn't let go of him, just drags him over to one of the fireplaces and steps inside it, pulling him with her.

"I don't think you're supposed to have two- " he begins, but she's already called some address and suddenly they're spinning in a whirlwind of sparks and ashes and her arms lock around his back as she presses her face into his sweater-clad chest.

They stumble out of a fireplace at the other end in a haze of smoke and coughs and dizziness, and she collapses neatly onto a sofa, her fair hair in disarray as she takes deep breaths, interspersed with the occasional cough.

"_Merde, _I hate floo," she says once she can breathe properly. He laughs quietly, his legs still trembling a little as the room revolves once more in an undecided fashion while he staggers over and collapses next to her. Usually he can get himself under control much more quickly, but something about her has his emotions and nerves all over the place.

She coughs again and then finally finds her legs, standing up and disappearing through a door. He gets himself comfortable on the cushions and waits for her to return, twirling his wand absently between his fingers.

She reappears eventually with two glasses of ice cold water. She hands one over to him and he downs it instantly, grateful as the cool liquid soothes his sore throat.

"Why would she do that?" he asks, placing the glass carefully down on the side-table and pressing his face into his hands. His shoulders judder as he takes a deep, desperate breath. "She said she loves me."

Gabrielle watches him for a brief moment and then gets up from the sofa, fishing around in a cabinet briefly before returning to him and thrusting a dusty bottle into his hand.

"What is this?" he asks as she uncorks her own bottle professionally.

"My grandfather's finest firewhiskey from 1834," she tells him with a hint of laughter in her French accent, wiping a smut of soot off her cheek and just smudging it further. He glances from the bottle to her as she takes a swig of hers, gasping as it burns against the back of her throat.

"I didn't have you down as a drinker," he says in slight astonishment as he works at the cork of his own bottle.

She giggles and winks at him as she takes another long pull. "I suppose you thought me very innocent and … how you say … naïve, yes?"

He shrugs and tilts his head to regard her for a moment. "You came across as very shy," he confesses, finally raising the bottle to his lips and taking a long swallow. He gasps reflexively as the alcohol hits his throat and blinks hard. "Was I mistaken?"

She giggles again, shifting closer to him on the sofa. "I suppose I am shy," she admits. "But seeing you upset about your wife has made me angry for you … and when I am angry I forget about being shy. Also, this firewhiskey deserves a night out. It has been locked away in that cupboard for a _very _long time."

He laughs and his arm falls easily around her shoulders as he drinks again, and soon they are surrounded by empty bottles and she is laughing almost hysterically as he attempts to brush the soot off her face with clumsy hands.

"Silly English wizards," she chides with a hiccup. "You are not so good with your hands as French wizards."

"Really?" he slurs back, running a hand through his hair as he pulls her up to him so she is pressed right against him. "I would have to disagree with that."

Her breathing quickens as his fingers find the buttons on her shirt, and she laughingly helps him shed his own clothes while she sings loudly and badly in French, silenced only when he presses his lips to hers and claims her, heart and soul, in the best kiss of her life.

--

When he awakes the next morning with a splitting headache and a very naked Gabrielle curled up against him, he has to take several minutes to remember the events of the previous evening. Then he swears and goes to sit up, but the alcohol has his brain whirring in alarm and he falls back down again, groaning, his head feeling like it's going to spontaneously combust.

Her eyes blink open slowly, clouded with pain, as he clutches his head and mutter furiously to himself.

"Oh," she says in a small voice when she realises that neither of them are wearing any clothes. "I should not have got the firewhiskey out."

Draco stares at her for a moment, her blonde hair now messy and falling in a curly fair nimbus around her face.

"I'm glad you did," he tells her firmly, and kisses her again as her fingers close around his upper arms. "It's not like I owe any loyalty to my wife."

She melts into his kiss because when he holds her like that her morals just _melt _and she can't think straight at all. There's no thought of the future or of what he'll do about his wife but so long as he doesn't ever leave her Gabrielle thinks she can probably be okay with being the _other woman_, although it's a label she'd always promise herself she'd never be stuck with.

After all, he's a pureblood and a Malfoy at that and really it's not likely that he'll ever divorce his wife because he won't ever be allowed.

She surrenders to his lips and his love and the unknown future while he desperately scrambles around in his brain for some, _any, _solution to this problem.

--

She sees him every night but Fridays. He and his wife seem to have reached some sort of agreement regarding their marriage, and she can't be anything but grateful that she has this much of him.

She supposes she's kind of pathetic but then she's a fool in love so can you really blame her?

--

He sends her a letter after two years of this, and he's been absent from her life for almost a month, ignoring her messages.

_Astoria is pregnant. We did the tests, and it's definitely mine. I'm so sorry. I had to have an heir by her, you know what my family is like._

_It's my child, and I have to be there for it._

_I'm so sorry. I expect you to hate me for this, and I will hold no grudge against you._

_I love you,_

_Draco._

She screams and rages and accidentally (on purpose) sets fire to all the documents he'd been working on for the last six months.

She wants to hate him. She almost succeeds in thinking it, but then one evening while at dinner with Fleur and Bill, while holding their new daughter, Dominique, Fleur looks across at her and says those dreaded words.

"Gaby, are you sure there has not been a man for you? I mean … I think you might be … you know …"

She had not told her family about her and Draco because she's not the innocent, naïve, _stupid little girl _they all think she is. But there is real concern in Fleur's eyes and as Gabrielle sits there, trying to think what on earth Fleur could mean, something hits her.

She stares down at her belly and the skirt she'd worn because she couldn't get into her jeans and her stomach drops right down into her expensive and high-heeled-shoed feet.

"No … no!" she cries, and as the baby in her arms starts wailing she hands her straight over to her sister and apparates right to his house.

A sense of déjà vu washes over her as she hears a child crying in the mansion in front of her, and she can't help sobbing as she stumbles up the garden path, knocking on the door as she furiously wipes at her mascara.

Thank god, _thank god, _it is him who answers the door. He looks her once up and down and before he can think he is holding his arms open and she is falling into them, crying into his shoulder like her heart is breaking.

He lifts her easily into his arms and carries her over the threshold, her arms locked around his neck.

"I'm so sorry," he whispers to her as he settles down onto the expensive leather sofa, holding her in his arms like a child. "If there was any other way …"

"Is your _wife _here?" she asks, unable to help the spiteful emphasis on the word "wife".

He sighs and cups her cheek in his hand. He's fanning the flames, but he can't bring himself to care. He'd forgotten how amazing it feels to have her close like this.

"No, she's out at lunch with some friends. You can tell: when she's here the place feels entirely forlorn. She's utterly unhappy being here, but she has to stay for Scorpius."

"And you?" Gabrielle asks almost silently. "Do you stay for Scorpius?"

"He's my son, my heir," Draco explains, looking down at her sad face and feeling completely and totally guilty. "He's my only child, I have to stay for him."

"If you had another child, would you have to stay?" she inquires quietly, refusing to meet his gaze, her (too long) legs draped across his lap. He stares at her with narrowed eyes, and then they widen and he pulls her chin up so his eyes can lock with hers, grey into blue, and his other hand gently runs over her slightly-rounded tummy.

"You're …?" he trails off, unable to complete the sentence. She nods and hides her face again. "Thank you," he breathes suddenly, pressing his face into her messy hair. "Thank you, thank you, thank you," he repeats, peppering her face with kisses and then pulling her to her feet and dancing with her laughingly around the room, picking her up and twirling with her held in the air above him.

--

Their baby girl is born August 23rd that same year, on the same day as he signs the final set of divorce papers.

As Gabrielle pulls baby Elena Narcissa into her arms, and Draco wraps his arm around her and cups their baby's head with his free hand, tears falling quite unnoticed down his cheeks, she smiles more brightly than the stars.

She has her happy ending at last.

---

**A/N: **Please no favouriting without reviewing, thanks.


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